Shorts: World

Wiesel, Dershowitz urge U.N. to drop Iran

new york (jta) | A Jewish-led campaign aims to expel Iran from the United Nations.

Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel and lawyers Irwin Cotler and Alan Dershowitz are backing the Jerusalem Council for Public Affairs' campaign.

The group will circulate a document calling for the United Nations to oust Iran because it has violated the U.N. Charter with its threats to destroy Israel.

Meanwhile, Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, urged U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to redisplay a U.N. Holocaust exhibit during next week's visit by Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has denied the Holocaust and called for Israel to be wiped off the map.




Entebbe airport terminal to be razed

jerusalem (ynet) | Just over 30 years after the Entebbe Rescue Operation, Ugandon officials announced Monday, Sept. 11 that the old airport terminal where the hostages were held will be demolished.

The announcement came during a special ceremony in the terminal. The observation tower will remain standing and within a year, a museum will be built in memory of the hijacking incident and the rescue operation.

The Entebbe Operation took place in July 1976 when the IDF forces, led an operation for the release of 105 Jewish and Israeli tourists who were held as hostages by Palestinian terrorists. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, the brother of former Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, was killed during the raid.




Argentina sees surge

in anti-Israel acts

buenos aires (jta) | Anti-Semitic incidents have been on the rise in Argentina since the Israeli-Hezbollah war began in mid-July.

After the month-long war began in mid-July, Buenos Aires' public Philosophy and Literature University was vandalized several times with anti-Israel graffiti. The university's walls were plastered with anti-Israel posters. "Be patriotic; kill Jews," was written on university classrooms and bathrooms.

To counter the surge, Jewish intellectuals, professionals and businessmen are running two pro-Israel petitions on the Internet. The Jewish community also has held demonstrations, partly to counter four anti-Israel protests held in front of the local Israeli Embassy by leftist political groups.




Pope visits site of

anti-Semitic sculpture

regensburg (ap) | An anti-Semitic sculpture from the Middle Ages in a cathedral recently visited by Pope Benedict XVI remains an ugly reminder of past persecution of Jews by German Christians.

Benedict led an ecumenical procession and evening service at Regensburg Cathedral on Tuesday, Sept. 12 — the site of a 14th-century relief depicting a sow-suckling people, who experts say are identifiable as Jews from their hats.

The pope did not address the issue of the sculpture during his visit.

Church officials and members of the city's Jewish community have put up a plaque in German inside the cathedral, stating that "this sculpture needs to be seen in its historical context and its anti-Jewish message is disconcerting to viewers today."

The plaque has been criticized for not going far enough.




Arab art in Australia skewers Olmert

sydney (jta) | The Jewish community of Sydney, Australia, expressed outrage over an Arab artist's exhibit that includes a painting of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with a skewer through his head.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Habib Zeitouneh, born in Lebanon and based in South Korea, defended his work as satire. Vic Alhadeff of the New South Wales Board of Jewish Deputies said the work is "beyond the realm of acceptable political comment." The exhibit, on display in a Sydney gallery, is billed as a response by Arab artists to the Israel-Hezbollah war.




Ireland gets new Israeli envoy

jerusalem (jta) | Israel's new ambassador to Ireland is expected to make a priority of improved media coverage and public relations.

Zion Evrony presented his credentials Monday, Sept. 11 to Irish President Mary McAleese. Evrony follows Daniel Megiddo, who spent much of his last month in office defending Israel's war against Hezbollah.

Megiddo provoked criticism in late July when he said in an interview on Ireland's state radio station that Lebanese refugees should be prepared to escape the bombardment on foot as refugees did in World War II to save their lives.

Evrony was formerly the head of the Israeli Foreign Ministry's policy planning bureau. His last foreign posting was as consul general in Houston, where he served from 1995 to 2002.